John 15:5 For without me ye can do nothing.
Ah my Friends there is such a joyous ring of truth to that statement of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that it just tingles my spine. On our own, we are capable of nothing. He died for us and was given dominion over us by the Father. That means everything we are or hope to be, must go through Him. The full text of that verse is; ‘I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.’ Why would I, in my right senses, want to do anything without Him anyway eh? He is the source of everything that I am. My heart, body and soul, all depend on His grace and mercy. As He says, He is the vine; that’s the mainstay of the plant. It’s like the heart in our bodies; it provides the wherewithal to make the body go. And we are the branches; tributaries or arteries feeding off of that main source. If you don’t get sustenance or direction from that vital source, then you either shrivel up and die from lack of food, or you grow in an unwise direction. Remember the offshoots of the main vine grow every which way, some can grow in dangerous places where they can be destroyed, eaten or trampled underfoot. Friends, we’re like the offshoots of that vine, and just like them we need to be careful, even with Jesus’ sustenance in us, where we walk or grow, for the point of the whole exercise is that we mature in the spirit and produce good fruit. Oh my people, Jesus is our source of power! It’s like all the electrical appliances in our homes. If we don’t plug them into an outlet bearing power, they won’t work. The same goes for us; if we’re not constantly plugged into Jesus, we won’t function the way we’re supposed to; that’s like Him. Now we simply don’t plug in and whirl away. The appliance needs to be turned on first. You can plug in the appliance to the power outlet and it will stand there forever and do nothing, unless you turn it on. Likewise my brethren, we have to bring our minds to bear on Jesus. We can always plug into His power source, but He only gives power to those who focus on Him, preferably a steadfast focus. So you can be a regular churchgoer, involved with good activities, but yet spiritually lacking something because you’re not steadfastly focused on Christ. We’ve all seen vines that overall seem to be flourishing, but in certain parts, the offshoots appear yellow and droopy cause something is wrong with the connection to the main trunk line, and, for whatever reason, those non-flourishing parts will be broken off and destroyed. As Jesus said: ‘If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.’ However, ‘If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.’ (John 15:6-8) There it is in a nutshell Friends! It couldn’t be any simpler. That’s one thing about Jesus; He could either make His words difficult or easy to understand. These are certainly easy. He’s just saying, I am your main man; your leader, saviour, lawyer, protector, and provider; your everything. In other words, you’re useless without me. If you don’t associate with me, then you’ll wither and die, or simply plucked off and destroyed. However, if you hang with me, hear my words, study them, and let them live in you, so that you’ll walk where they lead, then you can ask anything, and your wish will be granted. Note though, Jesus wasn’t referring to evil, selfish, foolish wishes, but sensible, sustainable stuff, that had good bearing on our lives. Remember too that Jesus doesn’t deal in fanciful, worthless things, and He listens to needs more than wants. And what does our abiding in Jesus do? Oh Friends, I think it kills several birds with one stone! It first makes us a disciple of Jesus: we stay plugged in to and focused on Him, which leads us to become more like Him every day, and when we behave like Jesus did, then others see it and desire to become like us, meaning that we’re bringing others to Him, that we’re being fruitful, bearing good fruit. And above all my brethren, it means that we’re glorifying our Heavenly Father. And that’s our most important earthly function; to spread His word and bring glory to His Holy Name. As Bruh David cried in Psalm 22: ‘I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. Ye that fear the Lord, praise him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel. For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.’ (Ps.22:22-24) And all the people shouted: ‘Praise Him, for He is a good God, and worthy to be praised!’ Yes my Friends, once we walk with God, the whole world is our oyster; there’s nothing good to which we’re not entitled. Jesus has made His promise, which we know He’ll keep. But we have to do our part for the whole thing to work. We’ve got to get plugged in and tuned in to Jesus, and stay that way too. I’ll leave us with some words of a friend, who seems to have an opinion on almost everything, Bruh Paul. (smile) ‘And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God.’ (2 Cor.3:4-5) Please my people, let’s understand that and act accordingly. Much LOVE!…get plugged in and turned on to Jesus…He only plays beautiful music…
SCRIP-BITS 